


Ninjabread Man

by ProsperDemeter



Series: 20 Days of Holiday Fics [3]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27859950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProsperDemeter/pseuds/ProsperDemeter
Summary: “Don’t become witch food.” Natasha’s silence clued him into her unasked question. “You know… Hansel and Gretel.”“Wasn’t that a candy house?”“Creative license.”“We’ll check in in ten.”They didn’t check in in ten.
Relationships: Clint Barton & Phil Coulson & Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton/Phil Coulson
Series: 20 Days of Holiday Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035498
Comments: 14
Kudos: 48





	Ninjabread Man

**Author's Note:**

> Day three of holiday fics! 
> 
> Shoutout to Cas and GP for the plot 😂
> 
> I genuinely don't know what this trash is.

“What’s the  _ problem _ ?” Clint echoed incredulously from his perch. “ _ What’s the problem _ ?” Granted, no one was asking  _ him _ but, rather, the actual point agents. His job was backup, to be the eyes from afar and stay quiet until they needed him to speak. 

The problem with  _ all of that _ was that Clint wasn’t the type of person to stay quiet. In any way, shape or form. 

So he had gotten accustomed to turning off his coms so that he could hear the other agents but they couldn’t hear him. Which was either a blessing or a curse. Because Clint wasn’t talkative because he liked the sound of his own voice. Talking helped him think, helped him focus, helped him pass the time. He had grown up in the circus and as a performer for Carsons it was almost always noisy even in the dead of night. He might have been hard of hearing for the majority of his life, but Clint had grown used to the constant buzz and vibrations of noise. So he talked, and he annoyed the entirety of Shield’s handlers, and he got slapped with the title of “difficult to work with” from almost everyone. 

But this mission? 

Clint had seen his fair share of weird over the years, both with Shield and, mostly, without. He had grown up in a circus, had been an assassin, and now… well he was  _ still _ an assassin but, regardless of his profession, he had seen  _ weird _ . 

But this? 

_ This _ ?

This took the cake for the  _ weirdest thing _ he had ever had the displeasure of seeing. 

“Please tell me you’re seeing this,” Natasha muttered in his good ear on their private communications channel. Nat never minded that he talked so much. She said it let her know he was alive and everything was going smoothly if he talked. It was when Clint got quiet that she had to be on high alert. 

“The giant gingerbread house in the middle of the woods? I’m both seeing it  _ and _ smelling it.” Clint quipped. “It does  _ not _ smell good.” 

“Not like the fresh gingerbread mama used to make?” Natasha teased lightly, but Clint was deft enough in speaking and understanding Natasha’s quirks to know that she was on edge. 

“Mama wasn’t that type.” Natasha made a noise at the off color and dark joke. Amusement. Clint’s mouth twitched into the ghost of a smile. 

“Be on alert, Hawkeye. We’re going to investigate.” 

“ _ We _ ?” 

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep him safe.” The cold metal of the ring Clint chose to wear around his neck rather than on his finger brushed against the heat of his skin. He shifted uncomfortably (not because of the topic but simply because sitting in the same half crouch for hours might have been amazing for his ass but was  _ terrible _ on his knees). 

“Don’t become witch food.” Natasha’s silence clued him into her unasked question. “You know… Hansel and Gretel.” 

“Wasn’t that a candy house?” 

“Creative license.” 

“We’ll check in in ten.” 

They didn’t check in in ten. 

In fact they didn’t check in in thirty or sixty or two hundred and forty either. Clint wasn’t the type to worry - Natasha could more than handle herself and he had no doubts about Phil Coulson’s capabilities - but he was starting to  _ worry _ . Unfortunately for everyone involved, it wasn’t exactly Strike Team Delta’s operation. They were just the support team. And as just the support team, Clint couldn’t make the call to enter the foul and rotten smelling gingerbread house in the middle of the forest without approval from the Agent in Charge. 

And apparently Kirk thought he was more useful sitting with his thumbs up his ass than engaging. 

Because Hawkeye was a long distance agent in most situations and Clint Barton wasn’t what most handlers thought of when they needed a quiet entrance or delicate and covert extraction. Nevermind his track record. Nevermind his actual, physical, paper record back at headquarters that listed all of his qualifications in both hand-to-hand, covert operations, and long range situations. 

He wasn’t irked at all. 

Which was a lie. 

He twisted the wedding band around it’s chain and to stop his mind from spiralling. He was sure there was a perfectly good reason why Natasha hadn’t checked in when she said she would. He was sure Kirk wasn’t simply incompetant and was refusing to send Clint in after his team for a good reason. 

But, well, Clint also got labeled as difficult for being bad at following orders. Being  _ bad _ was as much nicer way to explain his complete lack of caring about authority. He had been played by one too many  _ authority figure _ to give them immediate respect for a title. He had been through too much to assume that rules were the end all and be all of a situation, team, and dynamic. 

He didn’t have any problem breaking them. 

If it wasn’t Phil in there. 

Because Clint  _ respected _ Phil more than he respected himself. 

Then again, he told himself, if Natasha was stuck in there and Phil was the Agent in Charge he would have sent Clint in the moment the clock struck eleven minutes past. 

Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? 

He moved softly and carefully, light on the balls of his feet with his compact bow slung over his back and stuffed up against his full quiver. The pistol he had strapped to his leg was a heavy and comfortable weight, as was the knife up his sleeve. The purple tinted sunglasses perched on his nose projected a full layout of the scene he was approaching - it was empty save for a rabbit a half mile away and agents strategically posted a quarter mile beyond that. Clint swung himself down from the tree he had been perched on, boots barely making a sound against the soft forest floor, coated with snow and dead leaves. 

Clint had done his fair share of avoiding Shield agents - both as an agent and during his freelance years - and he liked to think he was pretty good at it. Sure, he wasn’t as up to par as Natasha was, but, then again, who in the world was. 

No one noticed him. 

The smell was  _ worse _ the closer he got, like a cookie left to rot behind an appliance. He screwed up his face at the smell, potentially coming from the fact that someone had built a  _ life sized  _ gingerbread house. Or, more accurately to assume and much more frightening to quantify, the smell was coming from the chimney that was pumping out a steady stream of smoke into the cold winter air. 

Either way, it wasn’t a good situation to be up close to. 

There was one time, when he was  _ much _ younger and could hear better, that Carson had sent him and Barney to muck the lion’s den. It had been hot and sticky outside and the layer of sweat that had coated his little eight year old body had only exacerbated the fact that him and Barney had no income from the circus, lacked an actual way to clean themselves more than once a week, and didn’t have any deodorant. He had almost thrown up at the way the lion’s den had smelled - heavy and putridly thick that it managed to somehow coat his tongue and the rest of his food for the next few days. 

This was both a better and worse smell. 

Better because it wasn’t  _ shit _ mixed with adolescent sweat. 

Worse because it was, well,  _ worse _ . 

He couldn’t put his finger on why until he was up closer. 

Whoever had crafted the house had gone out of their way to make  _ everything _ leading up to it out of something edible. Which was great in theory, but terrible in execution. Food spoiled and rotted and  _ smelled _ . And it attracted bugs.  _ A lot _ of bugs. 

It was like stepping into a childhood fairytale nightmare. 

He swatted uselessly at flies and repressed a gag at the crunch of insect bodies beneath his feet until he got to the door, went to raise a hand and abruptly stopped at the gaggle of maggots covering what  _ used _ to be the doorknob. 

He wasn’t going in  _ that _ way then. 

Not if he could help it, anyway. 

It was only with a wince and deep inhale through the sleeve of his shirt that Clint opened up his mouth to say a meek and much more quiet than usual, “Hello?” There was a shuffle and a crash on the other side of the door and Clint’s knife fell easily into the palm of his hand. It was a comfortable, compact weight - not so much as his bow but he was still adept enough with the blade that it brought him comfort to have it in his hand. The door - gingerbread too with some rather rusty looking hinges  _ somehow _ holding it in place - opened just enough for him to see a big, wrinkly nose and a pair of deep set black eyes peering out at him. 

Up at him. 

_ At him _ . 

Channeling his best boy scout Clint tried to make himself look as innocent as possible. Being that he had never  _ been _ a boy scout, he failed rather spectacularly. He supposed the bow and quiver strung to his back didn’t help. Or the combat boots. Or the glittering silver blade of his knife. Not to mention the fully loaded gun on his thigh. 

She took one look at him - or Clint  _ thought _ it was a she but he really didn’t want to misgender even the bad guys - and slammed the door shut in his face. 

A handful of maggots fell onto the leather toe of his shoe and Clint did a rather impressive disgusted dance to dislodge them. “Ew, ew, ew, ew, ew.” Clint muttered frantically and wiped his hand off on his pants before he steeled himself for the inevitable. 

So she wouldn’t let him in? 

Guess he would have to… force his way through. 

He heaved a deep breath, chambered his left leg and… his foot went literally  _ through _ the door to stick out the other end. 

It was okay. It was fine. That was totally what he meant to do. 

Until the bugs started crawling on him.  _ That _ was an unfortunate side effect. “No, no, no,  _ shit _ , no.” He pulled his leg out of the hole, thought about trying again, but ended up deciding to do the absolutely more disgusting option - stick his hand through the rotting hole in the door and just unlock it. 

The door swung open, an old lady screamed and lunged at him with much more strength than an old lady  _ should _ have been gifted with, and Phil sighed from where he was tied up by the big industrial sized oven (how did they  _ fit _ that in there?) like he was both happy to see Clint and only mildly inconvenienced by the entire charade. Natasha had a giant welt on her head and was slumped over the table with her eyes closed. 

He would never let her live it down - an  _ old lady _ had gotten the jump on her. 

She knocked him in the head with a chair and he dropped as wood splintered around his body. “What the  _ fuck _ .” He deadpanned and rolled out of the way of her foot. 

“They have super strength.” Phil supplied from his chair. 

“ _ They _ ?” Clint ducked under a fruit bowl. 

Phil nodded towards the other corner of the room and a second woman, this one the woman he had seen before with black eyes and big nose, flew towards him with a cry. “Phil,  _ what the fuck _ !” His gun was out in a matter of seconds, and the trigger pulled just moments after. It was with skill that most agents would kill to have that the bullets landed square between their eyes and they fell back in simultaneous bangs on the gingerbread floor. Clint panted, for just a moment, before rushing over to Natasha - she was his main worry since she had yet to move from the table - and checked her pulse. It was strong and steady but she  _ did _ have a giant welt on the back of her head. “Yikes.” Clint winced on her behalf - she was in for one massive headache in the morning. 

“Clint.” 

“Do you know Kirk made me wait four hours to come in here?” Clint started to rant, kneeling down by Phil’s wrists to start sawing his way through the rope with his knife. “Granted, I’m not  _ actually _ working on his orders right now but  _ seriously _ . Stay up there, Operative,” Clint pitched his voice deeper in a terrible imitation of the senior agent. “Follow orders, Barton.” 

“Clint.” Phil tried again. 

“And the outside of this place? It’s so disgusting, Phil. You guys could have warned me how many bugs would be literally the ground.” 

“ _ Clint _ .” Phil pressed. 

“It’s sort of a cool concept, though. Have to admit,  _ this _ is going to be one that no one’s going to believe us on.” 

“ _ Clint!” _ The ropes gave way and Phil, instantly, plucked the knife from his fingers and tossed it like a throwing star in the empty space behind Clint’s back. 

He flinched when it flew past his ear, and turned just in time to see the woman with the big nose fall backwards onto the floor again, this time clutching her throat where the knife stood out of. “They don’t stay dead.” Phil supplied in his good ear and tapped the button on his coms to turn them back on. “Kirk we could use an extraction team.” 

“Who the hell are these ladies?” He pulled Phil to his feet, brushed off his impeccable suit and tried not to think of the sheer amount of bugs that had to be crawling all over him at that moment. 

“Well, the one with the knife in her throat is Gretel.” Phil did the same to his shoulders, squeezed just a moment longer than was necessary and grimaced at something behind Clint. 

“You’re shitting me.” 

“Nope. Give me your gun.” It was phrased as an order but was more of a request. Phil never took anything from Clint that he wasn’t willing to give. 

“Why?” 

“They don’t stay dead.” 

Oh.

That explained both everything and nothing.

Still, he handed over the gun, reached behind himself for his bow and notched an arrow. He spun at Phil’s nod and hit Gretel’s friend - Hansela, he had taken to referring to her - square in the chest. She stumbled but barely slowed down on her path towards them. “Any ideas?” He asked as calm and collected as he could. 

“Oven’s on.” Phil pointed to where the oven was, indeed, shooting flames. 

“I’m not putting a  _ person _ in an oven.” 

“We are literally in a gingerbread house, Clint.” 

“And I draw the line at  _ cooking someone _ , Phil.” 

“I’m not saying we  _ cook them _ .” 

“You’re saying I should put them  _ in the oven _ .” 

“I’m  _ saying _ you should move out of the way of the oven so that  _ I  _ can push them into it.” Phil fixed him with a severe, ‘I’ve been doing this longer than you’ look. Typically, it was attractive. Right now, Clint was a bit too distracted to think much on it. 

He ducked a badly thrown right hook and got a wooden spoon smacked upside his head for his effort. He winced as his ears rang. “Why do they hit so hard?” 

“Super strength.” 

“Right,” Clint notched another arrow and let it fly at Gretel as she grappled with Phil. It stuck in her back, square between her shoulders, and Clint pressed the button to activate the taser. She shook and convulsed before dropping the grip she had had on Phil’s arms just enough for him to fire off a shot right where Clint’s had hit her before. “Because  _ of course _ .” 

Hansela fell with an arrow through her heart. 

If his calculations were correct they had about two minutes until they reanimated. 

Where  _ had _ his knife gone? Last he had checked it was in Gretel’s throat. 

He searched around himself aimlessly and caught sight of it a good meter from Natasha’s head. 

_ Lucky _ . 

“We should  _ maybe _ just get out of here.” He bent down, slung Natasha’s arm around his shoulders and heaved her up by the waist. Her chin dangled and hit her chest. “How did they get her?” 

“Hit to the back of the head.” Phil came around to her other side to help burden her rather inconsiderable weight. Seriously, it was like Natasha didn’t even eat. “A very  _ hard _ hit to the back of the head.” 

“Aw, Nat.” Clint whistled, gagged at the slew of bugs by the open doorway and hustled her out. 

A hand shot out and grabbed onto his belt loop. 

It was  _ much _ too strong to belong to a normal old woman. 

He fell backwards and Phil stumbled forward, Natasha square between them and barely avoiding a pile of ants by coming to literal moments before slamming back into the ground. She spun herself with a yelp and landed on her back, her wrist bending with a loud, audible snap. Clint would have been worried if it wasn’t for the old woman - Hansela - crawling onto his lap and trying to bite at his face. 

He fought her off as best he could, Phil and Natasha were apparently busy enough to Gretel, but she  _ did _ have what seemed to be super strength. 

What the hell kind of drugs had she taken? 

“ _ She _ was much too thin. No meat. She wouldn’t have tasted good.” Hansela said through the struggle, her teeth chomping hard on air. “You will taste much better.”

Clint would never look at teeth the same. 

And then he paused. “Are you… are you calling me  _ fat _ ?” 

“Much more  _ meat  _ on your bones.” She giggled. 

“Not. Cool. Lady.” He planted both feet squarely on the ground and pushed up with his hips, hard and fast. She went with him, even if she did not wish to, and fell to the side. The gingerbread floor cracked under the weight of her fall. He wrenched his knife out of the table - where it had been sitting beside Natasha’s head only moments before - and stabbed it straight into her heart. 

Phil’s hand grabbed onto his own and yanked him a step behind where him and Natasha were running, Gretel slumped against the broken, inedible wall. They were only moments away when they heard the cry of the women waking up and when Clint turned - against his own better judgement, honestly, Clint knew that the first rule in any horror movie was to _not look_ _back_ \- it was to see Hansela, with Gretel only moments behind her - standing in the doorway on her determined way out. 

He grabbed an arrow, notched it, screamed a little at the bug that came with it and crawled on his hand, and let it fly. 

He hadn’t  _ exactly _ had a goal in mind with the shot, he had been a bit more concerned with the slimy maggot inching across his skin, so when the house erupted in a giant cloud of smoke and flames he only looked up with wide eyes.

The smell, if possible, was worse. 

“I didn’t mean for that to happen.” He felt the need to defend himself. 

Phil laughed, a relieved and lovely sound, and Natasha shot them both an annoyed look with a hand pressed to the back of her head. “That’s one way to bake a cookie.” Phil said with a sly look in his direction. 

His eyes sparkled. Natasha’s darkened. “I hate you both.” 

“Sore head, huh?” She scowled. “Have you tried icing it?” The punch delivered to his bruised shoulder was worth it. 

“You’re a real ninjabread man.” Natasha said with an eye roll an hour later, when they were sitting in the back of a Shield issued ambulance getting patched up, a fancy new ace bandage tightly wound around her wrist. 

“Ha!” Clint pointed at her excitedly. “You just made a pun!” 

She leaned in close, her breath brushing over his bruised cheek so that only he could hear. “And no one will  _ ever _ believe you.” 

Clint sputtered, Natasha pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, and Phil took the open spot beside him, a bottle of water pressed between his hands. “So,” Phil said, looking between the two of them, his leg warm where it was pressed against Clint’s and wedding ring glinting in the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. “How are we going to explain this one?” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos make me a ninjabread man.


End file.
